The counselling approach to careers guidance

205 Pages·2001·1.28 MB·English

The Counselling Approach to Careers
Guidance
The counselling approach to careers guidance allows clients to develop a
clearer understanding of themselves and the wider issues affecting their
career choices. Through detailed case material Lynda Ali and Barbara
Graham demonstrate how to use counselling strategies to enable clients to
change unhelpful patterns of thought and to move towards achievable
goals.
The Counselling Approach to Careers Guidance offers a structured model
which can be adapted to meet the specific needs of every client. Each of
the four stages is illustrated with examples of good practice, showing how
to establish the purpose of the interview, the counsellor/client relationship,
the key issues for the client and the options available. Using this approach
the counsellor is able to help the client move towards a realistic plan of
action and to provide the client with the means and the motivation to
continue the process independently.
The book also explores materials available to careers counsellors and
includes a discussion of important issues affecting training and development
of advisers in the public sector.
This will be a useful handbook for experienced advisers and trainees, in
the careers service and a range of professional settings.
Lynda Ali is Senior Careers Adviser at Edinburgh University. Barbara
Graham is Director of the Careers Service, University of Strathclyde. Susan
Lendrum is author of Gift of Tears and Case Material and Role Play in
Counselling Training and a counsellor in private practice, Manchester.

The counselling approach
to careers guidance
Lynda Ali and Barbara Graham
Edited by Susan Lendrum
London and New York
First published 1996
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001.
© 1996 Lynda Ali and Barbara Graham
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-415-12172-8 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-12173-6 (pbk)
ISBN 0-203-13642-X Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-17624-3 (Glassbook Format)
Contents
Acknowledgements vi
1 Introduction to counselling in careers guidance 1
2 The counselling approach 10
3 Theoretical background to counselling 26
4 The model for a counselling approach 44
5 Counselling skills 62
6 Application of the model and skills in the careers
interview 87
7 The immediate environment 106
8 The impact of the labour market 128
9 Tools available to the careers adviser 146
10 Carol: the context of guidance and the guidance
interview 157
11 Training and development for guidance practitioners 178
Notes 187
Useful addresses 189
Select bibliography 190
Index 191
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to acknowledge the assistance of the many people who
have had a hand in the writing of this book. In particular we are grateful to
the guidance practitioners who were our own role models as we were
learning about our profession and beginning to practise the counselling
approach to guidance. Our editor, Susan Lendrum, and our typist, Helen
Crossan, helped the book to grow and develop with their patient
contributions to the shaping of the text.
We also acknowledge the assistance of the Advice, Guidance,
Counselling & Psychotherapy Lead Body in allowing reproduction of a
chart showing links between these various fields.
Chapter 1
Introduction to counselling in
careers guidance
In a world in which the concept of ‘a career’ is becoming increasingly fluid,
careers guidance is not a once-in-a-lifetime injection of wisdom which
orients a person in a particular direction for all time. As life enters new
phases and external circumstances add fresh dimensions to a person’s
situation, so the need for guidance arises at various times in an individual’s
life.
Because the need for guidance is associated with uncertainty about
future steps, people who seek guidance may regard it as a remedy for a crisis
and may expect a ready-made solution from the lips of an expert. Guidance
practitioners, on the other hand, recognise guidance as a process to be
worked through by the client over time, with support and encouragement
from the careers adviser.
Since there is potential for the two participants in a careers interview to
approach it with such divergent expectations, it is vital that the adviser
should make the client aware at an early stage in the discussion of the
respective roles of the client and the adviser. It is also important to clarify
what can and cannot be achieved during a careers interview. This book
therefore begins with a definition of guidance and a look at the people
involved in giving and receiving it.
WHAT IS GUIDANCE?
Effective careers guidance is a process which aims to equip individuals
with a clearer understanding of themselves and their potential for future
career development. In particular, careers guidance helps individuals to:
2 Introduction to counselling in careers guidance
• assess their career development needs at various points in their lives;
• understand the process of effective choice of a career;
• clarify their objectives for the future;
• take appropriate action to implement these objectives.
People who are approaching a decision about their future often benefit
from speaking to a skilled and informed listener, who can help them to put
the many factors affecting their career development into perspective so that
they can choose an appropriate direction for the next phase of their lives.
WHO GIVES GUIDANCE?
Careers guidance is not the exclusive preserve of careers officers in the
Careers Service and careers advisers in higher education. A recent study1
has shown that the most influential factor in young people’s choice of
degree course is advice from parents. Other informal sources of advice
include friends, employers, teachers, librarians, community workers and
voluntary agencies such as the Citizen’s Advice Bureaux.
Some of the advice from these sources may be sound, well-researched
and appropriately targeted, but this is not always the case. Because such
‘advice givers’ are not specialists in careers work and may deal with careers
enquiries infrequently, the advice which they give may be, at best, limited
and, at worst, out of date, erroneous and misleading. Despite these
limitations, informal sources of advice will continue to be used for careers
guidance, perhaps because of their very accessibility. The challenge to
guidance practitioners is to try to be equally accessible and to demonstrate
the benefits of well informed professional careers guidance. Through their
contacts with employers, careers advisers are in a unique position, enabling
them to interpret, for jobseekers, employers’ recruitment needs and their
expectations of applicants. This knowledge anchors their advice in an
appreciation of the real world of work which may not be apparent to their
clients.
Every individual – irrespective of age and ability to pay – should be
entitled to up-to-date, accurate, unbiased careers information and guidance
delivered by trained, competent, professional guidance practitioners. This
ideal has not yet been translated into reality, although it is close to being
achieved for learners in schools and universities and the situation is
Introduction to counselling in careers guidance 3
improving in further education since charters for further and higher
education pointed out students’ right to careers guidance alongside other
basic entitlements. For adults outside of education, however, provisions are
extremely patchy and access to sound careers guidance may depend upon
geographic location, ability to pay or the fortunate coincidence of working
for an enlightened employer with a strategy for the career development of
staff.
It is therefore worth clarifying the sources of help on careers issues to
which people in the post-16 age group can turn with the expectation of
receiving professional guidance. The following list also represents the
target audience for this book.
GUIDANCE PRACTITIONERS
The term ‘guidance practitioner’ covers the following groups of people:
• Careers officers employed in the Careers Service within local
authorities, or, following reorganisation of the Careers Service, local
enterprise companies or training and enterprise councils.
• Careers advisers in higher education institutions.
• The growing number of careers advisers in further education
institutions.
• Careers counsellors in private practice.
Although the settings and circumstances in which they work may differ
in certain respects from those of the groups mentioned above, other
practitioners are also involved in some aspects of careers guidance. These
include:
• Careers and guidance teachers working with pupils over the age of 16 in
schools.
• Educational guidance workers who help adults to select courses which
will have a direct bearing on their future career planning.
• Out-placement counsellors dealing with people whose jobs are
redundant.
• Personnel managers who specialise in the career and management
development of members of their workforce.
• Guidance specialists in training agencies who help their clients to
choose training courses appropriate to their future career aspirations.